Introduction: Understanding Europeanization in Central Europe

Abstract

This book examines the process of Europeanization in Central Europe. In doing so, it focuses on how Central European states adopted European Union (EU) rules prior to becoming members of the EU. During the accession process—which lasted from 1998 to 2004—all the prospective members were required to implement EU laws (the so-called acquis communautaire), except for a small subset of policies for which they were able to obtain temporary exemptions. The legal alignment involved the transposition of a few thousand EU directives spanning almost the entire policy spectrum. Besides the directives, there were also many decisions and regulations that had to be rendered into domestic law to create conditions for the direct applicability of such EU measures after accession. The adoption of EU rules was an explicit condition for membership, and full compliance had to be achieved before accession.